Tolkien Reading Order??

What's this?  I've never heard of an order to read Tolkien books other than The Hobbit > Lord of the Ring: Fellowship of the Ring > LOTR: The Twin Towers > LOTR: The Return of the King.  What's this craziness all about?

I was recently told while reading Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion' that I should have read the entire LOTR trilogy first (I have only read The Hobbit before The Silmarillion).

What I found on the Tolkien Society website, was that there is really no set order.  It goes with age, preference, and they one give lists of books in the order of publishing date. (this is not the full list, but it is from the smallest list I took two of them off of the end)

• The Hobbit
• The Lord of the Rings
• Tales from the Perilous Realm [mainly short stories with only nominal Middle-earth content]
• The Silmarillion
• Unfinished Tales
• The History of Middle-earth series
• The Children of Húrin

So, by this list, I went out of order, but in the second, much larger list on the website, I was even more out of order.  What I pick up from this list is that really, there is no order to read the books, except for the LOTR trilogy.  Those you read in order, but the rest of the books is mainly fair game to a point.  Having found this new list, or published dates, I now know that there is just about as many books as I thought Tolkien had written as well.

As I found other books, they really only included a small few of his stories.  Others say that it's a better idea to read stories that Tolkien wrote with no editing help from his son Christopher first, then the ones Christopher helped with afterward.

I had wanted to read the LOTR trilogy before I read the Silmarillion, but it was a matter of where the books were when I started reading.  My LOTR books were my storage unit from my recent move, and The Silmarillion was in my apartment with me, because it was with my college stuff.  So I knew I had a personal reading list.

• The Hobbit
• Lord of the Rings (all three)
• The Silmarillion
• Children of Húrin
• (then order of which books bought first)

What's your order for reading the Tolkien books?  Did you come up with this list before, during, or after you started reading his wonderful stories?  Out of the Tolkien books you've read (if you have), which one is your favorite?  Let me know down below!

À beintôt

photo creds: monogram, books, quote, 

Why Am I Wearing Red?

It's the same as why women were wearing pink hats and marching almost two months ago.  I am wearing this color in honor, and in support of so many others, because I cannot be with them physically today.

International Women's Day.  A day for everyone.  The campaign theme is #BEBOLDFORCHANGE.  A quote taken from their website, to explain the day, is this "International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity."

I have signed up for support.  And when doing so, because you can too, you can choose between different areas to take bold actions in.  There are: challenging bias and inequality, campaigning against violence, forging women's advancement, celebrating women's achievements, and championing women's education.  I chose the last one, championing women's education, since education is something I feel very strongly about.  I am one of (when I signed up it's a lot more now) 45,301 people who wish to take action.  Pictured right/above is my screen after I stepped forward for education.  And you can too, just go to the IWD website and #BeBoldForChange.

And to be clear, this day is for all women, and all people in general.  No one is discriminated from this event, because that's not right.  We all need to start praising the wonderful things in women, from their education to their work and everything in between.  I love this day, and I'm glad that more people are fighting for this.  It's time we pulled ourselves harder out of this misogynistic hole.

With that comment, I'm not a hater of men, truly.  But, it's a rut our country (and others) have that we value men (mainly of the white skin color) more than we do our women and our citizens who are minorities/POC.  Today is one of the key rungs of the ladder to achieving our goal of equality.

À bientôt!

Photo credits: red, IWD logo, me supporting,